They have no clean water to drink and are being forced to wash themselves and their clothes in a nearby river, which is contaminated by filth.

Their previously picturesque village had hoped to draw in tourists with its spectacular sea views. Now, it resembles the set of a disaster film. The ground is no longer visible and it is impossible to walk around without treading on the scattered remains of the villagers’ shattered lives – everything from children’s toys to mattresses and wardrobes lying where the storm hurled them, among rubbish washed in by the sea.

“We are alive but life is very hard,” said Jolita, who sold rice at a local market. “We are all exhausted and hungry. For now, I can see no way forward for us. Our only meals come when Lionell is able to catch a fish but that is so hard as his boat and all his fishing equipment were taken away by the sea during the hurricane.

“He keeps going into the water on foot to catch what he can but many times there are no fish. We’re not eating much. I don’t know what we are going to do – we have nothing left. We are ­surviving day to day.”

Satellite image of Hurricane Matthew is seen moving through the Bahamas (Image: NASA)

Jolita’s neighbour Roseline, 33, has five children aged between seven and 18 - and is six months pregnant.

Her husband Joel, 46, left their village four days before the hurricane to visit his mother in Jeremie, 77 miles away. When the hurricane’s route and full force became clear, he stayed to protect his mum.

But Roseline has not heard from him since and now fears the worst.

She said: “I pray to God he is alive but I just don’t know and I fear for the health of my unborn baby. I can’t go to the ­hospital because I can’t physically get there. My belly has been hurting and I can’t check if everything is OK.”

Speaking of the moment she realised she had to get herself and her children out of Port Salut to save their lives, Roseline added: “We ran for our lives and took shelter in a school next to a church. The storm carried on from 1am until 6pm. It was terrifying and then when we returned we found what you can see now. It is like the start of the apocalypse. We came back to a world of s***.

“I’m stressed out. I don’t know what is going to happen to any of us now. It is like living in a nightmare.”

More than 1,000 men, women and children have been killed, tens of thousands are homeless and an estimated 2.1 million people – including 500,000 children – are in urgent need of medicine, food, clean water and safe toilet facilities.

Ninety per cent of some areas in the southern Haiti have been destroyed, leading to thousands of temporary shelters being set up.

Entire villages like Port Salut were flattened and tens of thousands of trees toppled as 145mph winds and torrential rain tore through the ­island. Bridges were demolished, crops ruined and animals drowned.

For those left behind here, a new fight for survival has begun.

Fears of famine and cholera are ­mounting in the stricken country, which is one of the poorest in the world.

Many of Haiti’s dead have already been buried in mass graves. Flooding and contamination have made water unsafe to drink.

Small towns all along the western part of Haiti suffered extreme damage from heavy winds and rains and on the coastal areas, storm surge (Image: UNICEF/Abassi)

Killer bacterial infection cholera – which has a short incubation period that leads to rapid outbreaks – can kill within hours if untreated. It has already claimed more than a dozen lives and has so far led to nearly 200 being hospitalised.

Damien Berrendorf, director of Oxfam in Haiti, said: “Our greatest fear is that loss of crops and possible spread of ­cholera and other diseases will cause more deaths than the actual hurricane over the next days and weeks. We are talking about vulnerable people who have lost everything.

"They’ll not recover livelihoods or reach minimum survival conditions without more support.

“Damage wrought by Hurricane Matthew to roads and power lines in some areas is of the same magnitude to those after the 2010 earthquake.”

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Eleven days after the hurricane, Haiti was last night a country on the edge.

The initial international aid effort – to which Britain is giving £5million – has been stepped up after initially being hampered by the lack of a usable airstrip large enough for cargo planes.

But with many roads still blocked and communications down in the worst-affected areas, the help is still struggling to get through to some areas, leading to anger and even violence. Earlier this week, 1,000 looters armed with stones, knives, ice-picks and hammers battled to grab T-shirts, bags, toys and any other items they could find in destroyed houses and shops on one street.

Aid trucks carrying water supplies as well as cars and jeeps belonging to charities and NGOs have been attacked by looters in recent days and some are now forced to travel in convoy under armed police guard – and only during daylight hours, as it is too dangerous at night.

The people of Haiti – which had still not fully recovered from the 2010 earthquake, which killed 200,000 – know from previous experience there will be no quick fix.

Yesterday, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon flew in to see some of the hardest-hit areas. He visited the city of Les Cayes as the UN appealed for $120million to help the stricken island. So far $6.1million has been raised, said UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric.

Aid agencies say it could take a decade to get people’s lives back to normal. In the most devastated areas in the south-west region, more than 80 per cent of the population relied on self-­sufficiency farming.

Two children play with tires in Jeremie, a town the Garnd-Anse Department, Haiti (Image: UNICEF/Moreno Gonzalez)

It was proudly known here as Haiti’s Pantry, as it provided most of the country’s food.

With their crops ­destroyed and farm ­animals killed by the hurricane, many are now going hungry and cannot afford to buy replacement seeds or farming tools.

Jean Claude Fignole, programme director of Oxfam in Haiti, said: “The west coast of the country is still cut off and we fear that the numbers are going to increase considerably as emergency teams advance.

“What is most urgent now is to provide safe water to prevent disease, as well as food and essential supplies. Mobilisation of the international community in support of the Haitian people is urgently needed.”

Back in Port Salut, fisherman Robert Labri, 37, a married dad of one, summed up the community’s sense of helplessness.

He said: “God knows what we will do now. We have nothing to live on and we have all lost our homes.

“We want to rebuild here but we don’t have the means. We cannot do this ourselves, we’re all in the same situation and desperately need help.